1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to rotatable textile fiber processing components.
2. Prior Art Statement
The processing of natural and synthetic textile fibers is achieved with rotatable fiber processing components such as cots, drafting aprons, rub aprons, spinning rolls, roll covers, and the like. The outer portions of these components are generally made using polymeric materials which resist abrasive wear from the various fibers being processed and also resist the various oils employed in processing the fibers as well as oils and the like which are an inherent part of the fibers. Further, various efforts have been made heretofore to provide compositions which when used to make components are designed to improve the working surfaces thereof and an example of such an effort is presented in U.S. Pat. No. 2,991,515.
It is known in the art that there is a tendency for these processing components to assume distorted or flattened configurations when their associated machines are inoperative, e.g., weekends, whereby it is desirable to provide such components having minimum compression set characteristics. It is also known that in rotatable fiber processing components there is a tendency for fibers being processed to wrap around or "lap-up" during normal usage and it is believed that the lapping tendencies of such fibers are due to the frictional properties of the working surfaces of the fiber processing components together with other factors such as static electricity.
Various polymeric formulations have been proposed heretofore for making rotatable fiber processing components in an effort to solve the problem of compression set and anti-lapping using a single formulation or compound. However, polymeric compounds which have good resistance to lapping tend to have poor compression set characteristics while compounds with good compression set characteristics tend to have poor lapping characteristics. In general, a material with good lapping characteristics has a comparatively low coefficient of friction.
It has been proposed heretofore to provide a method of improving the outer portion of a rotatable textile fiber processing component to define the desired properties of minimum compression set for the outer portion and a comparatively low coefficient of friction. This previously proposed method basically comprises making the outer portion substantially of butadiene copolymer rubber and as is known in the art the molecules of butadiene rubber contain sites that are capable of being acted upon by halogens to change the properties of such rubber. As a step of this previously proposed method, the outer portion is subjected to the action of a halogen to define the above-mentioned desired properties.
However, the above-described method comprises subjecting the outer portion of a rotatable textile fiber processing component to the action of a halogen with the component disassembled from its machine or prior to assembly thereon and involves a plurality of method steps including disposing the outer portion in a liquid bath containing a halogen, washing such outer portion in a suitable solution, and drying and curing the outer portion employing suitable drying means. As is apparent, this known method is time consuming and thus comparatively expensive. In addition, the mere fact that the method requires processing of each component away from its associated machine and rotatable support means therefor is inherently more time consuming and expensive.